Lexii’s story

05 Dec 2022

*Lexii is a carer for members of her family, but also has care needs herself

As a result, she found life admin and making friends a challenge.

With the support of The Wallich’s Carmarthenshire Floating Support service and Carmarthenshire Wellbeing Project, Lexii is building her confidence, dealing with things head on and making new friends.

Read her story

Life as a carer with care needs

“My daughter’s disability social worker referred us to the Carers Trust, who then referred us to The Wallich.

I was struggling a lot with lots of different stuff.

My husband was born with disabilities. So, I’m officially a carer for him but I’m also a carer for my daughter who has autism and learning disabilities.

And my son has ADHD. So, there’s a lot going on in our household.

I have disabilities myself, as well as being a carer on top.

I’m a ‘Carer with Care Needs’ – that’s the official term.”

Getting the right support

“I was struggling with a lot of different things, and I came through to The Wallich initially for help with housing.

We’d moved into our house before the bidding process came in and so we had no choice about the house.

We have some issues with our neighbours. I was threatened.

I should have involved the police, but I was in crisis with my own mental health and wanted everything to go away.

So, we needed help to get onto the bidding system and get into the right council banding.  It was a lot of hard work.

The Wallich has supported me to get everything in place.

They [The Wallich] helped me figure out who I was supposed to call, what I was supposed to do, where I could find information and who I needed to talk to.

Because I had no idea what I was supposed to do in the situation we were in.

Some of the support I needed was trying to get my own confidence to advocate for myself.

If you don’t have the confidence to speak to the council then you don’t get anywhere, so they’ve really helped me to advocate for myself.

I remember making a phone call while I was here.

It really helped having people around me, knowing that Steph [The Wallich Support Worker] was right here when I was having a phone call, if I needed support.”

Building confidence in nature

“Steph was like, ‘You should come down’ [to the allotment].

It was difficult for me to go at first, because I find it hard to leave the house.

The first time I came to the allotment there were like seven people here, and Steph didn’t think I was going to come back. But I did.

When I stay in the house for a certain amount of time, it gets harder and harder for me to leave. But I did come back.

Depending on how things are at home, I come here frequently.

Sometimes it needs a push, but that’s not because of anything here, it because of what’s going on with me.

When I’m here, I am fine and glad I came. I really enjoy it when I’m here.

I struggle being around people. I don’t have any friends outside of here. I can come over quite awkward and brash to people.

But here it’s much easier to get along with people because everyone’s different, more accepting, there’s a lot of diverse people.

I told Steph, ‘I warn you; I kill any plants I come across!’. But I try and get stuck in as much as I can.

It’s good to learn and it will be nice seeing things get growing. So, I look forward to learning.”

Find out more about The Wallich’s Floating Support service and the Wellbeing project.

 *Lexii is a pseudonym to protect the client’s identity

If you’ve been affected by any of the topics mentioned in this case study, help and support is available. Visit our Help & Advice page to find out more.

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